ServiceNow expands in Germany | ZDNet.de

Detlef Krause said: “Germany and Japan are currently our most important growth markets” office-Mindspace, a shared service provider in central Munich. Since November 2018, Klaus has been the Managing Director of ServiceNow Germany.

Large companies renting from Mindspace in Munich will have a particularly short distance from ServiceNow, a pure cloud IT service provider (Image source: ServiceNow)

As a further expansion of the country, ServiceNow is currently establishing two colocation data centers in Dusseldorf and Frankfurt. ServiceNow customers can currently access ten data center pairs, including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland. In order to achieve its high availability goals, IT service experts from the cloud are also responsible for the management of the infrastructure layer there. Only structure, climate and energy infrastructure come from this role. ServiceNow will not disclose who it is.

When asked why the German market is so important, Krause said: “First, the trend of introducing innovation from the cloud is now also taking effect here. Second, we have high-quality correct solutions, and third, managers are in the process of transformation. The mission and importance of the company are changing. “In addition, ServiceNow clearly benefits from demographic changes. Because the lack of qualified workers will force efficiency and automation. After all, in Germany, as in Japan, work flow and process optimization have long been attached importance.

“Germany and Japan are currently the most important growth markets second only to the United States”, Detlef Krause, who has served as the general manager of ServiceNow Germany since November (photo: ServiceNow)

Many corporate clients in the Munich area

ServiceNow believes that the local market in the Munich area has the greatest growth potential because many global players have their headquarters in the city and some offices in Mindspace. Therefore, the Munich office provides the best opportunity to easily maintain existing and new contacts with innovative companies. “When drinking coffee in a bar, interesting conversations spontaneously appear,” Klaus said happily. In addition, innovative employees who need ServiceNow need urbanization and a knowledge-attractive atmosphere, both of which can be found in new locations. In fact, many Mindspace rooms give the impression of a comfortable coffee bar and living room, rather than an office where people work hard and negotiate. Of course, they use the latest technology.

Large companies are the core customers of ServiceNow. In addition, there is an upper middle class with up to 20,000 employees. Klaus: “Many medium-sized companies are hidden champions. This entire group is important to us.” Small companies have not been actively resolved. However, under special circumstances, it is very likely to do business with each other, for example, if a startup company is closely related to one of ServiceNow’s main customers, or if the company’s business is interesting.

The Munich branch of the service provider currently has approximately 30 employees. Other locations are in Hamburg and Frankfurt/Main. In general, the number of employees employed by ServiceNow in Germany is “three-digit.”

But it will grow like the entire company, and by 2021, the planned sales in the EMEA region (Klaus) will reach billions of dollars. ServiceNow currently has nearly 7,700 employees worldwide. Subscription revenue in the third quarter of 2018 increased 39% year-on-year to US$673 million. Although it has made some automation acquisitions, the company mainly relies on its own growth.

New: especially for medium-sized companies

In Germany, Krause first restructured sales to implement growth plans. To this end, he used the experience accumulated in SAP, Microsoft And Salesforce.

He said: “We now have five sales areas: a medium-sized company and four large company areas, completely divided by industry.” The latter is firstly a highly regulated market (telecommunications, finance, energy), followed by a complex value chain Of professional business areas, such as chemistry/pharmaceuticals, life sciences and health, followed by CPG (consumer packaged goods) in retail, followed by classic manufacturing and automation industries. The team of the medium-sized company is being completely rebuilt.

ServiceNow is also committed to new sales channels and partnerships. Due to the existence of the target group, they do not have traditional local distributors, but large consulting companies or smaller professional consultants. “They can inspire customers to use the tools they use” (Krause). Large telecommunications providers form another possible sales channel. Here, ServiceNow is already making a specific agreement, but does not want to disclose to whom.

Since then, ServiceNow has left its previous field of service products for ITSM (IT Service Management). Klaus: “We are now a platform provider, for example in areas such as interpersonal relations, IT operations or business management.” In these areas, ServiceNow’s growth is now faster than ITSM. Freudenberg is one of German customers who rely heavily on ServiceNow for its IT services. Klaus: “There are two main platforms: SAP and ServiceNow.”

Smarter algorithms in the future

Customers will appreciate the agility of ServiceNow cloud services. “We release a new version approximately every six months and maintain roughly the same version and functional status in all our data centers,” said Thorsten Fuchs, who is responsible for German marketing. There are exceptions due to the legal requirements of individual markets. Due to the EU GDPR (EU General Data Protection Regulation), almost no adjustments are required.

Fuchs described ServiceNow’s goals as follows: “We hope to improve employees’ daily lives by reducing their daily work.” Now, the direction and products are widely recognized. Klaus: “In 2018, we ranked first among the Forbes 100 most innovative companies in the world.” Klaus: “We beat the old leaders here.”

To ensure that this continues to be successful, smart algorithms should also contribute in the future-what will happen today? However, ServiceNow currently does not intend to introduce AI product portfolio, but hopes to integrate machine learning or AI elements into existing products in the background so that they can better perform their automation tasks. Klaus: “No employee likes to answer the same routine query repeatedly, but there is no time to deal with more complex topics.” Here, the combination of algorithmic intelligence and dialogue system can not only meet the needs of users, but also make employees’ Time becomes meaningful.